...ask questions like "Can you suggest some high quality fantasy or sci-fi works that have as their core theme "the relationship of humans with their environment" or "the nature of intelligence" or whatever.
"The Machine Stops" E M Forster.
Yes, the "Passage to India" and "Howards End" Forster. It's a short story in response to H G Wells, with a theme of mankind's dependence on (and unthinking acceptance of) technology, and withdrawal from a "natural" environment towards a "virtual" one. Students should appreciate that even authors of the literary cannon saw sci-fi as a valid means of expression. It was written in 1909, so that's a nice 100 year distance between Forster's forecasting of a televisual, networked society and its reality to discuss. Its also available online at http://www.plexus.org/forster/index.html
Slashdot Mirror
...ask questions like "Can you suggest some high quality fantasy or sci-fi works that have as their core theme "the relationship of humans with their environment" or "the nature of intelligence" or whatever.
"The Machine Stops" E M Forster.
Yes, the "Passage to India" and "Howards End" Forster. It's a short story in response to H G Wells, with a theme of mankind's dependence on (and unthinking acceptance of) technology, and withdrawal from a "natural" environment towards a "virtual" one. Students should appreciate that even authors of the literary cannon saw sci-fi as a valid means of expression. It was written in 1909, so that's a nice 100 year distance between Forster's forecasting of a televisual, networked society and its reality to discuss. Its also available online at http://www.plexus.org/forster/index.html